Ms Louise McGirr:

The amount to which the Senator referred is just over €1 billion, or €1.032 billion. That is non-core funding. I will get the exact figures now, but some of that - around €200 million or €250 million - is for the Covid vaccination programme and test and trace. A significant amount of the funding is being used to deal with what we call the legacy of Covid, including the waiting list action plan and investment in a range of waiting list actions, because there is pent-up demand and a build-up of delayed assessment etc. from Covid. It is non-core funding and it is the second year we have received it. We have the additional temporary funding to deal with the waiting lists and urgent emergency care requirements over winter, in particular. We are seeing a really big increase in demand. Just over €400 million of it is for the resilience fund, which will help offset some of the increasing expenditure demands in our acute sector. It will also be used to increase our investment in areas, including the integrated financial management and procurement system, IFMS, and other digital initiatives, to try to build up resilience.

It covers a range of areas. It also includes Ukraine but most of that €1.3 billion has gone to health.